GREENFIELD — Two very different offenses played it down to the wire. In the end, it was the Cheesemakers that made the plays when it mattered the most, and walked off of Falcon Field 28-21 winners over Whitnall in a WIAA Division 3 Level 1 football game Oct. 22.
“It was just a great game — and you can really say that when you don’t lose,” Monroe coach Toby Golembiewski said. “These games are always good when you win. This one was like the old Badger South — it wasn’t 40-to-whatever. I really thought we were going to see an overtime, and I really thought we’d be in good shape if we went to overtime.”
Seventh-ranked Monroe (8-2) will be on the road at top-ranked and unbeaten Greendale (10-0) in Level 2, just 3.36 miles as the crow flies from 50-yard line to 50-yard line.
“We’ll be coming 5-10 minutes away from here. Maybe we should just get a hotel here and practice at AmFam Field,” Golembiewski joked.
The win also represented the 100th career varsity football victory for Monroe coach Toby Golembiewski. The Cheesemakers are 33-21 in six seasons under Golembiewski, reaching the playoffs in four of the five possible years (there were no playoffs in 2020).
“That took a long time — 22 years as a high school head coach,” Golembiewski said. “I don’t do a lot of counting, I’m not good with numbers, but that’s a big deal. … At Orangeville, and then (Monroe) in the Badger South, we’ve always been the smallest school next to a private — whether it was Edgewood or Aquin. It hasn’t always been easy. We had dynamite teams once every 8 or 9 years, and then we had no win or one-win teams once or twice every 8 or 9 years.
“That’s a lot of games, and that’s a lot of guys on all of those teams that won those games; a lot of coaches that I worked with that won those games. If you think about it, each win is a successful Friday night, and it took all those people that I was involved with to make that happen — and a woman at home who had to go through all of it.”
Against Whitnall, Monroe rumbled for 403 yards of offense — all on the ground — with Badger-bound senior JT Seagreaves collecting 173 yards and three scores on just 13 touches. Most impressively was his 91-yard scamper on the first snap in response to Whitnall taking a brief 14-7 lead in the second quarter.
“It’s always a grind — but that’s what it takes to win in the playoffs,” Seagreaves said.
Keatin Sweeney also found plenty of open space in the game, including a big 46-yard pickup in the first quarter to set up Monroe’s first score. Sweeney finished the night with 159 yards on 16 carries and a score.
The running lanes were open on the outside, because Whitnall showed early on that fullback Alex Hernandez was not going to bully his way up the middle. Hernandez entered the game with 920 yards rushing on the year, and finished with just 11 yards on five carries. Backup Kaden Kuester gained 20 yards on five carries in the second half.
“It was clear to us early that statistically from the last films of games we saw, that their goal was going to be to stop our inside the tackle/fullback game — because that’s where we had the most success over the last two weeks, and it makes perfect sense that they would do that,” Golembiewski said. “Then you have to execute on the flank stuff, and we did.”
Sweeney is now over the 1,100-yard rushing threshold this season (10.0 ypc average), and Seagreaves, playing in the backfield for the first time in his career, has 934 yards on the ground (9.7 ypc).
Whitnall and Monroe traded possessions to open the game, but the Cheesemakers struck first on their second possession. After an attempted punt-run came up short at the Monroe 39, the Cheesemakers needed just four plays to put points on the board. Seagreaves opened with a 9-yard carry, and two plays later Sweeney found open real estate for 46 yards, putting MHS at the Whitnall 3. Seagreaves scored on the next play, falling forward on a run inside.
The Falcons had an opportunity to respond on the ensuing drive, picking on Monroe’s secondary. However, the play ended when running back Dominic Greer coughed up the football at the Monroe 1 — and the Cheesemakers recovered in the end zone.
Whitnall scored a possession later to make it at 7-6, with Seagreaves blocking the PAT. On Monroe’s next possession, quarterback George Brukwicki fumbled the ball away on a sack, and the Falcons proceeded to score just four plays later — and then converted a two-point conversion — to take a 14-7 advantage.
Monroe nearly let the momentum change snowball into a disaster, as the ensuing squib kick bounced around and was recovered at the Monroe 9. On the next snap, Seagreaves found an opening in the line, then made a single cut at the second level to get by the safety. A state-qualifying sprinter, the 6-6 Wisconsin commit outran the rest of the defense with ease to the 91-yard score.
“That is my career longest rushing touchdown, and it felt great,” Seagreaves said. “We were mixing it up with our whole offense and were showing them something they hadn’t seen.”
That’s because Monroe added a
The pendulum swing of momentum continued, as Whitnall QB Caleb Straughter underthrew his intended target, and Monroe senior DB Chase Stoerp picked it off at the Monroe 35.
“We knew we had to bring it,” Stoerp said of the secondary. “Last week I thought we played pretty dang well, and we just had to bring it back. The coaches got us mentally prepared for that tonight, and we brought it.”
On the very next play, Seagreaves took another handoff to the house — only for a block in the back penalty 40 yards behind the play to make simply a 15-yard gain. The next three snaps all had flags fly, a worrying trend for both programs.
“If we’re going to do all the coulda-woulda-shoulda’s, we took off another off the board ourselves and on another drive with enough penalties, I though we had enough good plays otherwise to score as well,” Golembiewski said.
Monroe would go on to turn the ball over on downs with 16 seconds left in the half. Whitnall still had an opportunity to score, holding the ball at the Monroe 40 with two seconds left on the clock. Seagreaves dropped back to play prevent safety, but the Falcons offensive line was no match for the Cheesemakers’ 3-man rush, as Isaac Derrickson sacked Straughter to send it to halftime.
“The coaches always tell us that you can’t give up any home runs. Like that fumble at the 1-yard-line, you can’t give up any big plays,” Stoerp said.
Whitnall outgained Monroe 248-yards to 205 in the first half, but the Cheesemakers made enough adjustments in the second half, outgaining the Falcons 199-152.
And it all started from the get go.
Monroe opened the half with possession, and Seagreaves picked up 38 yards on the second snap to put the ball deep into Whitnall territory. Three plays later, Sweeney took a jet sweep into the end zone.
Whitnall counted with a TD of their own just over three minutes later, but it was the last time the Falcons sniffed the end zone. Monroe still turned the ball over on downs in each of its next two possessions, then punted away from near midfield. The Falcons final possession began at their own 15, and steadily the home team worked its way to midfield before stalling. Facing fourth-and-6 at the Monroe 43, Whitnall called back-to-back timeouts — it’s second and third in the half — trying to devise the best play. When play resumed, Straughter threw a swing pass to Greer, which was snuffed out immediately by Seagreaves, turning the ball over.
With the Falcons out of timeouts, Golembiewski knew he just needed to get his team into field goal range for kicker Lucas Flom, who is 20-for-23 on PATs since taking over kicking duties midway through the season.
“It was either going to be Flom kicking a field goal or George making a great decision,” Golembiewski said.
On first down, Monroe went to the air — a rarity in the Wing offense. The deep throw to Seagreaves was flagged for defensive pass interference, which put the Cheesemakers at the Whitnall 41. Back-to-back run plays had Monroe at the Falcons 26, but an incomplete pass and a short 3-yard run had Monroe stalled at the 23 with time winding down.
Needing to pick up a few more yards to get into field goal range, Golembiewski put his trust in his junior QB. Facing third-and-7, Brukwicki rolled to his right and immediately saw an opening in the flat, yelling “Go!” to blocker. The scramble included a quick one-step cut and Brukwicki lowered his shoulder as he met a pair of defenders at the 5-yard-line, picking up the first down at the 3. On the next snap, Seagreaves once again fell head-first into the end zone, leaving just 38 seconds left on the clock.
“Everyone was open there that I could throw to, but I felt like it was a safer play for me to keep it ang get the yards myself,” George Brukwicki said.
George’s older brother Henry then sent the ensuing squib kick into the back of a Falcon’s front-line blocker, and the Cheesemakers landed on the ball, almost as if the onside kick was entirely planned. With Whitnall out of timeouts, George Brukwicki knelt down the final snap to seal the victory.
“I think last week (31-28 loss to Edgewood) really prepared us. We really only had one or two tough games this year, and I felt like last week really prepared us,” George Brukwicki said. “We’ve got to keep focused and not celebrate too much, because we’ve got another big one next week.”
In Level 2, Greendale brings balance and strength, though there is some possibility of over-inflation of it’s top ranking. The Panthers won the Woodland Conference, which sent four teams to the playoffs — and promptly gained just one win — Greendale’s 17-7 win over McFarland. The Cheesemakers defeated McFarland 42-7 in just two weeks prior.
“McFarland held these guys to a close matchup. I think we are going to study the film and study some of the things they used to make that happen and learn from McFarland,” Golembiewski said.
Greendale has outscored opponents 279-83 this season, including 204-35 in the first half. Monroe, meanwhile, has outscored its opponents 353-131 overall and 185-77 in the first half. The Cheesemakers are also a one-dimensional team — running the ball more than 90% of the time. However, that ground game has been dominant all year, with more than 3,600 yards gained on the ground and three players combining for nearly 3,000 of those yards.
The Lions have gained 1,400 yards through the air and another 1,200 on the ground — an average of 260 yards of offense each week. Zach Sheridan is the Lions QB, accounting for 1,384 yards passing with 21 TDs to just four INTs. Javon Murry (727 yards) is the team’s leading rusher, with only one other back, Anthony Sardina (359), gaining more than 110 yards collectively on the season. On the outside, however, the Lions employ three receivers than defenses have to choose carefully how to defend. Brayden Latus (16 catches, 376 yards) has four TD scores this year, but is averaging 23.5 yards per grab. Will Vaile (18/343) leads the team with eight TDs, and Izaiah Correa (24/337) leads the team in receptions.
Against McFarland, Sheridan was 12 of 19 passing for 136 yards and a TD, while Murry had 74 yards on 20 carries and Sardina 67 yards on 17. The pair combined to average 3.8 yards per rush, and the Lions simply plodded their way down the field against the Spartans defense. Greendale ran 58 plays in the game to McFarland’s 31, while the Lions defense held the Spartans to just 155 yards of offense.
In Monroe’s five-score win over McFarland, Hernandez had nearly 200 yards on the ground with three TDs. The Cheesemakers defense held the Spartans to just 100 yards of offense while collecting 362 themselves, and running 58 offensive plays to the Spartans’ 27.
